You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Since these are transcribed from the Hellenic alphabet, their spellings in Latin script can vary.
Here are ten.
I’ll leave the swear words to Cassia in my novel What’s Left. Especially the ones she learned at church camp.
I know where I’m getting the candy rocks and gummy fish to decorate my gingerbread lighthouse this Christmas. And it’s also a great place for guys to find great little gifts for the significant other in their life, something that usually confounds us. It’s even a fun place to take her on a stroll around town. (Think cheap date.) You can sit in air-conditioned comfort while savoring the yummy ice cream. Or even keep a bunch of kids happy.
We’re hoping Lickees & Chewies Candies & Creamery catches on. It seems to have its act together, blending several types of economically marginal stores into one.
Key to everything is its location, across from the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire and above Noggin’s toys on the ground floor of the historic Cocheco Millworks downtown. The one drawback is that the entry is on the other side of the building, away from those two kid magnets.
But once you’re inside, you’ve entered a whole different world. It smells richly mysterious, largely from the chocolate bakery. There are maps with pushpins where customers indicate where they’ve visited from, and there are metal rings on strings you can swing toward hooks in the wall if you’re feeling playful.
There are more classic games in the sitting area, which includes a large round table suitable for a birthday party, actually. Or just resting or looking at the views out the window.
So one part of the operation is the ice cream counter, with an emphasis on creamery. But remember, this place is loaded with candy, as in toppings.
Then there’s the old-fashioned candy store itself, with about every brand you can imagine. The entrepreneurs don’t proclaim their organization or knowledge of the field, but it’s there – Southern candies in this part, German in that – even before you get to the saltwater taffies. Many of the smaller wrapped bits haven’t been a penny apiece for sometime, but that’s its groove anyway. After all, the idea is to fill your own bag.
Yet another part is the fine chocolatier. This is where to find a gift to impress, maybe even a new client. And there’s plenty of room to grow to the side.
They make the most of the historic textile mill space. The ceilings are tall, with bare wood posts. The lighting is warm, tasteful, with some German Black Forest kinds of surprises befitting a fairy-tale atmosphere in the evening.
It’s been here a year already, but I’ve just discovered it. I’m definitely anticipating getting back before Christmas.
As an author, I had to have a clearer idea of where their redesign was heading. So this is what I settled on, even though it felt like too much information when I got to the final revisions. By the way, I’m still not clear how many seats the place should have.
If you’ve been in the food biz, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Is 200 too many for Carmichael’s Indiana? Is 60 too small for Stardust upstairs? And how many could sustain the much smaller vegetarian Bliss?
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Would we have lots of booths or one long banquette along a wall with small tables? And if there are booths, will they be tall, for privacy, or low, at seated shoulder-blade or back-of-the-head height?
You take all this things for granted, don’t you? I had no idea. It’s just the way things have been as long as I can remember. Little did I anticipate all the heated discussion!
Baba’s passion for sleek, stainless-steel contemporary design runs into opposition. Not here, Graham insists. Too sterile. Imagine what you’d want coming in off the street on a damp November night. You want warm and comfortable.
Pia pipes up in favor of something organic by local woodworkers and weavers. Something homespun. She’s right.
Could we have wood-burning fireplaces? How efficiently could we clean everything, anyway? Think of a mop between the stools and base of the counter. We’ll still have a counter, won’t we?
Graham takes up another consideration: the restrooms. They need to be integrated into the whole package, not an afterthought.
And what about the wine cellar?
That’s a new one – wine cellar?
Yes, if we’re going gourmet, we’ll need a decent wine list. It’s something the Taverna’s never dealt with.
Oh, I’m so glad she stopped talking like this! In the final version, she’s pretty snippy. And by then, so am I.
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Thinking of great restaurants, Fore Street in Portland, Maine, with its industrial shop airiness, would be at the top of my list. No nonsense and yet crisply ordered. I could mention others, much smaller, in Providence, Rhode Island, or Wellfleet on Cape Cod, or our all-time favorite, a tiny house in South Berwick, Maine.
And we can also name some others with great decor that greatly disappointed us, at least when it came to our plates.
One of my favorites is actually take-out only.
So what’s your favorite place to eat? Does it have a window with a view? Or is there some other dimension beside the food itself? Please, don’t you dare mention clowns or big-screen TVs.
Since my indoor pool pass is good year-’round, I don’t spring for an extra pass to use the city’s outdoor pool each summer. Instead, I get to go there for free during the final two weeks of the season, when the indoor pool is closed for annual maintenance and upgrades.
The outdoor pool, though, can be a glorious experience. Here are ten points to consider.
Not long ago, or so it seems, I posted a Tendril on 10 cars I’ve had in my life. (I was going to say “owned,” but one was a company car.)
Guess I’ll have to make that 11 now.
My 2002 Toyota Camry fell victim to rust damage, which would have kept it from passing state inspection. It also needed new tires and an oil pan or some such. Besides, the key worked only on the driver side – not the trunk or passenger door – and the costly air conditioning coolant disappeared after a month or so of summer and, oh yes, the ignition did freeze up several times in recent winters. I know I’m overlooking other defects.
Still, it was paid for and I was hoping to hit 300,000 miles.
Alas, I bit the bullet and agreed to let go now at 283,000 miles. Gee, 17,000 short – I wanted just one more year.
In its place is a 2016 Chevy Sonic. I’m downsizing, for sure, but I no longer have a long daily commute or kids and their gear at home, and my wife’s Prius is what we’ll use when there’s more than one passenger.
I’ll spare you the calculations and experiences of used-car shopping, but will say that maybe if I’m lucky, this will be my last car purchase. Who knows?
Or by then we may just be into the revolutionary era of self-driving vehicles.
In the meantime, I still have a long way to go in catching up with all the new technology on the dashboard.
Downtown Dover grew around the falls on the Cocheco River, where the mills could channel the current to produce world-famous calico and much more.
Below the falls and the dam atop them, tides from the Atlantic Ocean downstream rise and fall eight to ten feet every six hours or so. Boats from the ocean made their way the 14 miles upstream to pick up or deliver goods.
As pollution in the river has been cleaned up and the city itself become more of a center of the Seacoast Region, planners have been looking to develop an open stretch of unpaved parking lot and weeds across the water from downtown.
For years, the site was the public works yard – not the best use of potentially valuable real estate. That has since been relocated elsewhere. I’m guessing it was tannery and warehouses before that.
A proposal to build anew there fell through in the real estate collapse of the great recession at the end of the George W. Bush administration but now, a decade later, it’s emerging in new form.
Key to the design is the extension of Henry Law park along the river as a walkway with added attractions such as kayak and canoe landings. A hillside has already been carved back to allow moving an existing street away from the river to open the space for more pleasant picnicking or the strolling public.
Further on there will be room for new housing and small stores or offices. Done right, it should be quite welcoming and attractive.
Just as important, in my eyes, is the way this will open up access to an existing city park at the top of the hill. Rather than running into a dead end as it does now, Washington Street will rise up the slope to become the entrance to Maglaras Park. It will be an easy walk from downtown, rather than the convoluted route it’s replacing. Even for drivers, it’s a huge improvement.
Continue reading “Dover’s new riverfront appearance and hilltop park access”
The more she learns about her great-grandmother in my novel What’s Left, the more reason Cassia has to be curious about her roots.
How does one present, say, eleven generations without turning into a (heaven forbid!) James Michener?
Even Gabriel Garcia Marquez quits after a hundred years!
Jnana's Red Barn 